


Terms of Endearment

by jeeps



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Blow Jobs, Derogatory Language, First Time, Frottage, Jealousy, Multi, Virginity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-06-11
Updated: 2004-06-11
Packaged: 2017-10-04 00:18:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeeps/pseuds/jeeps
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for scribbulus_ink's <i>I Don't Want To Die A Virgin</i> challenge. Beta by Jain and Dev.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Terms of Endearment

**Author's Note:**

> Written for scribbulus_ink's _I Don't Want To Die A Virgin_ challenge. Beta by Jain and Dev.

Really, slut was such an ugly word.

But when it came to speaking his mind, Sirius was anything but a shrinking violet, especially when it pertained to those things which he distinctly and rather publicly lacked. Ever to James's unmitigated delight.

"Sod off, you git," Sirius seethed, hair slipping forward to do a piss-poor job of hiding his inflamed cheeks. Remus absently noted that it rather made him look like a girl, the way it manifested as artfully applied rouge over the sharp juts of bone. He had to acknowledge that this was probably as close as Sirius was ever going to get to an awkward phase. Remus sighed.

"I just find it rather ironic, Pads, that Gryffindor's resident virgin," and here James slid down in his sprawl in one of the common room's armchairs to nudge the book in Sirius's lap forward with a socked toe; Sirius retained his white-knuckle grip, "sees fit to speak with such authority on Moony's sex life."

"Why is my sex life even a topic for discussion?" Remus complained, retrieving his Arithmancy text before it became victim to, say, an unfortunate collision with James's head. Sirius let go of it a little too quickly, jerking his fingers back from the accidental contact with Remus's hand. He got somewhat tetchy around Remus whenever this topic came up. And come up it did; Remus's question was largely rhetorical, at this point. He rolled his eyes and tried to ignore the sting as Sirius leaned slightly away from him.

"What are best friends for, if not to humiliate you and make privacy a thing of pipe dreams?" This was Peter, small smile and round cheeks over the top of his own text propped on the table.

"Thank you, Peter," Remus said over Sirius's "Too right," before they leveled suspicious glances at each other.

"Like hell!" Peter chirped, letting the book thump down on the table. He leaned forward in his chair, balancing there only by the grace of one hand planted on the seat between his legs. "_I_ saw you coming out of the Prefects' bathroom after Lilah Pascel last night. Her hair was still _wet_, Moony."

Out of the corner of his eye, Remus saw Sirius toss his hair back from his face and cross his arms, presumably in vindication, and even James had to raise an impressed eyebrow at Remus.

"Ravenclaw Lilah? Takes a bit to get a leg over on that one, Remus, I mean, the chill alone will shrivel up a man's knob." He looked thoughtful. "Though I hear it requires some brains to get past the _Libido Premere_ charms on the Prefects' bath, must've impressed her."

Remus closed his eyes in horror while Sirius made a choking sound beside him. He only wished he'd been the one to cause it.

James went on, "Obviously not a virgin, now, but you could almost _see_ the chastity belt under her clothes. She might have given Sirius a run for his money."

"Oi, fuck off already, Potter!" Sirius erupted. Remus was very resolute in his decision to keep his eyes shut. "Like putting it to the same girl every night is such an accomplishment!"

"_Don't you say one bloody thing about Lily, you sodding little shit!_" James roared, and in the ensuing scuffle Remus made an unashamed if desperate break for the dorm.

*

Certainly, the word _communicated_, but Remus didn't exactly think it spoke of him. He liked touch, he liked the release it allowed his body, so accustomed to a wholly different primal loss of control. He liked that it felt _good_. He liked holding another body with his own strength and being good to it. And sliding into Lilah had been... well. There was more honesty in fucking, wasn't there, than in the playful and unrelenting weight of Sirius across his shoulders. Of course he wouldn't understand.

Virgin or not.

*

Obviously, taking the piss out of each other could only bring them closer together, so breakfast in the Great Hall next morning found Sirius and James sitting side by side, the entire lengths of their arms meshed together like a charm gone wrong. They were muttering to each other on the sly with their pancake-filled mouths, and it didn't become any more intelligible the closer Remus got. Though they seemed to be focused on the Ravenclaw table two over, which made Remus hope with knowing futility that his assistance wouldn't be required for this one.

At least they had been studiously ignoring Slytherin for the time being. James was having none of it. Or Lily via James, but it hardly made much difference nowadays.

Remus lifted his eyes as he stepped over the bench. Acutely aware of Sirius's gaze upon him like the snap of a rubber band against sensitive skin, he pursed his lips to stave off the smile trying to curl the corner of his mouth when he saw Sidney Perks looking at him from down the row with sleepy interest. Sidney gave head to die for.

"Making your way through the P's, Moony?" Sirius said, all 'lovely weather we're having!' in his voice.

"What?" Suddenly it wasn't much of an effort to keep the smile off his face. James was looking at Sirius with some alarm.

"Oh, for... are you still on about that?"

"You know me," Sirius chirped, crunching his last bit of bacon between his teeth. But he wasn't looking at James. He also didn't bother to wipe away the grease shining the tips of his fingers, just propped his wrist against the table and hovered them over the wood.

Remus could have sworn that he'd been starving when he'd woken up.

"If it's all the same to you..." he murmured, clasping his hands in his lap and staring down at his plate. At the edge of his vision he saw Sirius do the same.

*

"It's all so clear!" James's voice rang down the corridor, giddy in that dangerous way he and Sirius shared. Remus stopped walking and tilted his head back to meet James's fever-bright eyes as he ran to catch up.

"What's clear?" Remus asked with trepidation.

"Why Sirius is acting like such a prat," James replied, as if it were obvious. Which Remus thought it rather was.

"Because he's Sirius?"

"Yes. No! That is, we're wizards, aren't we? We need some sort of, of," James's hand flailed around in an attempt to grasp its quarry, "ritual. Sacrifice, like. _Virgin_ sacrifice."

Something unidentifiable and contradictory like burning ice coiled in Remus's gut. "oh, James, please don't tell me you're saying what I think you're saying."

"And you're _just_ the man to do it!" James went on, clapping Remus on the shoulder. Remus shrugged him off, and James actually had the audacity to look confused.

"I'm not a _whore_, James," Remus snapped. "And it's— it's—!" _Sirius_, he meant to say, but:

"I never said you were, mate," James interrupted, and Remus had the sudden impression that he'd pinched between calloused thumb and forefinger the unadulterated glee that had flickered in James's eyes moments before. "That's not why I thought— I just _think_ that if you asked him, he would say yes."

Remus stared. "James."

Of course it would take Remus's complete bewilderment to return James to his usual unruffled state. Well, save for his hair. "Yes, Remus?"

"What are you _talking_ about?" he almost shouted, then ducked his head as James flicked an amused glance as the stares of the passing students. "How does this solve Sirius's problem? And I only ask that in the most hypothetical way possible."

"Because Sirius's problem, mate," and James leaned forward, conspiring, so certain he held the solution in the palm of his hand, "is that he's too damn loyal."

"That doesn't bode very well for me, then, does it?"

James huffed out an exasperated laugh. "You're so bloody stupid sometimes, Remus. It's much too late for that."

*

Remus decided that the best course of action was to ignore his best friend as much as possible, and, predictably, a confused Sirius followed suit. James, meanwhile, had taken up the unsettling habit of winking at Remus whenever the three of them were in the same room together, resulting in Lily wondering aloud whether James fancied him. So then, at least, James spent more time snogging his girlfriend in very public areas and walking around in a general daze that distracted him from tormenting Remus. Remus gave Lily one of his last chocolate frogs. Wizard's debt, he explained.

However — and since he most assuredly would not be taking James's "advice" on the matter — this did nothing to alleviate The Problem (which Remus had begun to capitalize immediately following his unfortunate discussion with James). A fact harder to ignore than Sirius himself when, a week later, Remus entered the library to find Sirius in intimate conversation with Lilah Pascel.

They were sitting on one of the stiff and worn sofas beneath the musty sunlight filtering through a window above. Somehow it just made Sirius's hair blacker, the paltry light leeching it of as much color as it could spare, his head bent close to Lilah's and propped up on an arm. His whole body was facing her, one knee pressing into the back of the seat while his other leg sprawled carelessly to the floor, streamlined with hers and almost touching. His look upon her was fierce, intent, absorbing as she spoke earnestly, books scattered around her and on her lap. Remus wanted to hate Sirius then.

"What are you doing?" They were on opposite sides of the library and Remus had barely raised his voice, but Madam Pince's influence was well in effect and it carried over the hush.

Sirius's head tipped forward, shook, and then he raised his face to meet Remus's with a charming, distant smile. _You can take the Black out of the family..._

He barely heard Lilah's cold "Hello, Remus," and she looked away with pursed lips when he snapped his eyes away from Sirius's and the defiant tilt of his chin. They only lingered on her for a moment before Remus was walking out of the library. He was acutely aware of the wood grain of the door underneath his shaking fingertips as he tried not to crack it into the wall.

He was down the hall and halfway up the first flight of stairs when Sirius caught up to him. He could never leave well enough alone, and _this_. "Remus." This was a total fucking cockup.

"Moony! Moony," he grabbed onto Remus's arm, jerking him back a step by sheer momentum, "—wait. We were just _talking_, for fuck's sake!"

"About what, Sirius?" Remus tensed his arm until Sirius tentatively removed his hand, then turned to look down at him. The anger had begun to settle into his throat, and he found himself grateful for the forced height difference between them, his hair falling forward to prick at his eyes. "You've never before noticed Lilah's existence, what could you _possibly_ have found in common now?"

"well. you," Sirius admitted, tapping his fingers on the railing and shifting his gaze down the decline of the steps, as if regretting his decision to come after Remus.

"Ah," Remus said, softly. "I should have seen your mark all over James's shite little plan." Sirius's attention was back on him then, dark eyes narrowed and shrewd, while confusion was writ across his brow. Remus's laughter couldn't rise past the lump in his throat; no, he was the one with words etched into his forehead, spelling Sirius. Of course he wouldn't understand.

"What plan?"

Remus felt his face twist into something ugly, and he was backing up a step, turning away.

Sirius didn't move to stop him this time, but his voice rang across the stone of the castle in every direction. "She came to me, all right?" Remus could hear only the slow clack of Sirius's shoes moving up the steps, and realized his words had proved just as effective a restraint, even if they were a last resort. He didn't stop until he was standing beside Remus, and Remus stared ahead at the glaring sunlight on the stone stairs while Sirius looked at him.

"About what?" Remus gave in, though his tone conceded nothing.

"I imagine she thought I'd give her an in. Being your friend and all." Remus glanced at him sharply and saw the sardonic smile that had ridden Sirius's words.

"Stop being cryptic, Sirius," he sighed, finally turning and slumping against the railing.

"Right, then. She thinks you're a bastard, as you haven't much talked to her since... you know. She thought I might be able to tell her why, but no, as I could only _relate_, we had a little bonding session." Remus stared at him in a speechless sort of fury, and Sirius scoffed and looked away. "Well, she bonded. I was mostly on the receiving end of a lot of nattering."

"You forget that I've seen you when you're bored, Sirius. _That_ is not what it looks like."

"Yeah," Sirius murmured, spreading his hands out, palms up, before the long, pale fingers curled into them and his arms dropped helplessly to his side. "I. You just. You're so angry with me and you do that and." Though his head was tipped to the side, his hair forming some sort of protective shield against his cheek, Sirius's eyes were fixed to Remus's as if he were a beacon to help Sirius find his way to the words lost inside of him. _But I am no safe harbour,_ Remus thought, and then felt the waves crashing over him as Sirius went on unheeded, "I just don't understand how anyone could want that. Least of all me."

Remus's realization and his breath knotted in his chest, unmoving, and he did nothing as Sirius turned and hurried up the stairs and the echo of his footsteps finally vanished from Remus's ears.

*

His legs ached by nightfall and the moon spilling its light into the corridors, two days to fullness. He always felt weak about this time, in a way that jittered along his bones and up his spine, in a way counteracted by this nervous energy. His nerves, though, were rarely like so, live-wire synapses that shocked and hurt at the touch. So he walked the corridors aimlessly, refusing to allow them connection.

He bumped into Sidney Perks around one corner, and Sidney was alone, and Sidney kept a hand on Remus's side long after he had steadied him. They fucked in a classroom that was locked solely on principle and an _Alohamora_ away from being trespassed. Sidney kissed him, pressing Remus against the professor's desk until Remus was sitting on it. He undid Remus's trousers first, jerking them down by the waistband as Remus propped two hands on the desk and lifted his hips. He didn't make a sound while Sidney sucked him off; his body was trembling too much, and if he let his voice go he would let it all go, too soon.

When he did come, he bucked and his shoes banged loudly against the hollow wood of the desk and his fingers pulled Sidney's spiky blond hair. It took him longer than usual to get his breathing back under control, and for a time he thought it might not happen at all when he couldn't seem to get any air past the horrid lump in his throat. He brushed a cheek with the back of his hand and turned his head away from Sidney, and when Sidney offered to let him talk about it Remus shoved a hand down his trousers to shut him up.

*

It was silent between them again, but it felt to Remus like the calm at the center of the storm, with Sirius's eye shifting over him. Remus reckoned Sirius thought he was doing him a favor by not approaching him again, now, but it just made Remus more skittish. In their dorm room the following night, poor Peter had the misfortune of reaching around Remus for his Transfiguration notes in his customary unintrusive manner, and when Remus snapped at him in startlement he found himself looking down at a squeaking Wormtail. James, sprawled on the floor shoving into his Quidditch gear, paused and stared at him in awe. Sirius hadn't even been in the room.

The silence continued, though, even after the full moon. He awoke the morning after to a searing pain lancing through his side, and on his wheezing inhale saw Madam Pomfrey standing over him, tucking a vial into a pocket of her apron. Through his gasps, he moved an aching arm over the lumpy mattress, touched tentative fingers to his skin and the gash tracing the curve of his bottom rib. She remarked that she couldn't recall the last time he'd had such a bad night, could he? And he rasped, 'No,' and closed his eyes, knowing that when he woke the wound would be gone, though a scar would remain.

Upon returning to the dormitory later that morning, Remus stood by his bed and stripped down to his underwear, pressing a hand to the bedclothes as he tried to keep his weary balance. He sat on the edge and bent over to retrieve the trousers he'd kicked off, and when he straightened with them in hand he froze. Sirius was awake, and looking at him.

He had clearly gone straight to bed, though he was filthy, the skin on his torso streaked with dirt and scrapes of dried blood. Remus remembered then as he often did, like a fracture in his skull, fragmented shards of memory reflected from a splintering mirror: snapping, vicious white teeth; muscles twitching under black fur as the dog paced in agitated circles and the soft whine as the stag's antlers prevented him from moving closer; and the taste of his own blood in his mouth. Now he could only taste bile, and he swallowed and stared back at Sirius, whose eyes were slate in the shadows of mid-morning. After a moment, Sirius turned his head away and shifted, muscles along the dip of his spine tensing into a small, hesitant roll of his hips before he was still. Remus's eyes burned with exhaustion, but he couldn't look away.

When he was next awoken, torchlight threw flickering shadows across his bedhangings, and low, furious voices were rising in volume from the other side of them. "You _berk_," came James's, smattered with incredulity. "I apologize profusely for not letting you get killed."

"So you thought you'd let him have a go at it?" Sirius hissed.

"He's _fine_, Sirius."

"Yeah," was Sirius's tight response, and Remus touched his fingers to the hanging in front of him. "Yeah, I guess that's okay then."

"Look, he wouldn't let you near him all night, he would have torn you apart if you'd forced it!" But the dormitory door slammed on James's words.

*

It had hurt the very first time he'd seen Sirius. He had been bent double laughing, Gryffindor tie almost touching the ground, and sooty from Remus's view through a window of the Hogwarts Express. Despite his mirth the boy's eyes had been fixed on the target of his amusement, and at the last moment they widened and flashed ruthlessly and he'd escaped onto the train faster than anything Remus had ever seen, because he hadn't seen the wolf until its teeth were in him. Sirius was so _alive_, and it hurt in the space between his heart and his stomach that held on to everything he wanted. He'd thought, then, it was to be just like that boy.

Now, he knew he just wanted _him_. And it hurt worse than ever, because maybe Remus was the one who didn't understand.

*

The four of them liked to nip up to the shack on Hogsmeade weekends after they'd done their shopping, which recently tended to occur sooner rather than later, ever since James and Sirius had gotten a life-long ban from Honeydukes. (It was a very unfortunate incident involving Cockroach Clusters, a multiplying charm, and an intensive study of the properties of the Chocolate Frog beforehand; Remus didn't like to think about it.) This usually left to Peter and Remus the task of picking out the favorable proportions of sugar quills to Every-Flavor Beans to Pepper Imps to whatever else James and Sirius fancied would cause the biggest nuisance at the moment. James gave them very explicit (and lengthy) instructions, before turning to Sirius and asking him what he wanted. Sirius just shook his head moodily and said it would be a wonder if they'd even have any free arms when they were done with James's shopping, and stared away from them in the general direction of Zonko's. "Never stopped you before," Remus remarked softly, then just smiled when Sirius jerked his head back around with wide eyes. Remus prodded Peter through the door of the shop.

They emerged later laden with sweets, Peter with a blood-flavoured lollipop shoved experimentally into his mouth and an odd expression contorting his face. They took the long way to the shack, down the main road to its less crowded end rather than cutting across the frozen grass, and met the other two along the way. Peter presented a Honeydukes bag stuffed to the brim to James, who made sounds over it that might have made Lily jealous. Sirius, on the other hand, had dropped his mouth open and failed at every attempt to put it to any kind of use. He still hadn't taken the proffered bag Remus held out to him, and James had to reach a hand back and tug at his collar to keep him moving. "Just take it, Sirius," Remus muttered, shoving it into his chest.

"Right, but," Sirius looked down at the bag as if he'd never heard of Honeydukes before in his life, "I didn't give you any money."

"You don't _have_ any money."

"Right," Sirius repeated, and Remus's lips twitched. "Jamie! Be a mate and spot me a couple of Knuts."

Remus looked askance at James, who flung an arm round Sirius's neck and leaned toward him as if to acquiesce, likely with utterly graceless nobility. Instead, he met Remus's eyes behind Sirius's head, and grinned. "Mm, no. I think I'll leave that to Remus."

James had one of his own Acid Pops shoved through his smirk so fast that not even his Quidditch reflexes could save him in time. He gave off a remarkable impression of refusing to speak to Sirius for the rest of the day, for all that he couldn't have even if he'd wanted to. James had had a date with Lily that night, and it would take a good twenty-four hours for his tongue to grow back.

*

Every cloud had a silver lining, and one thing Remus had come to appreciate about catching up on schoolwork late into the nights following the full moon was the quiet. For all the castle's secret places, few of them were as hospitable as the Gryffindor common room (particularly in mid-winter, when the hearth's fire was almost constantly stoked to buffet its heat against the cold, stubborn stone). It was usually just him and a few of the more conscientious students studying for OWLs or NEWTs and the scratching of quills over the popping fire. Tonight, however, even the others had retired to bed, and Remus and his books were left sharing the fat sofa before the hearth. It was good; he knew he could have been in his own bed by now if he hadn't indulged in the Hogsmeade trip, but he was almost nocturnal by necessity, and the only work left was reading a few chapters out of his Muggle Studies book (he could never be bored by scholarly dissertations on underarm deodorant). Or it would have been good, if Sirius hadn't been stretched flat on his back on the rug in front of him, hair sprawled over a throw pillow he'd nicked from under Remus's arm, and Remus's Arithmancy text propped on his stomach.

He wasn't even reading it.

Again.

He was staring at the pages all right, but the few times Remus had chanced a glance over, his eyes hadn't been moving. Instead, they were darkened enough to catch the flickering of the flames, and Remus knew Sirius had retreated well and good into his own head.

"Padfoot?"

Sirius blinked; it seemed to shutter the fire as he tilted his face towards Remus, a different, disquieting flash in the look that seemed to throw its own shadows over the room. Remus's vision seemed filled with the bright whiteness of Sirius's shirt, the artificial flush reddening his skin. He cleared his throat.

"Why do you always pretend to study when you're spying on me?" Remus asked with genuine curiosity. "I should think a more convincing ruse existed."

Sirius didn't seem especially perturbed by the accusation. "I wasn't spying, I'm just— thinking."

"Oh?"

Now Sirius did fix him with a glare, and sat up, the textbook thunking closed in his lap. "_Yes_," he said. "Git."

Remus didn't say anything, wishing he hadn't at all as they continued to look at each other and he saw unease seep through the indignation tracing Sirius's body. His tone was light, but it wavered as he spoke.

"So James's plan was shite, eh?"

The apprehension snapped and backlashed through his body, tensing his muscles. "I thought you didn't know anything about that."

"I asked," replied Sirius shortly.

"Then you hardly need my input, do you?"

Sirius seemed to study his expression for a moment, and then his own fell; he shook his head to look into the fire, jerking the book out of his lap and dropping it on the floor beside him. His hand remained tensed on it, though, and he didn't get up.

"What do you want me to say?" Remus asked him, barely over a murmur. "Yes, it's bloody brilliant, I should fuck one of my best friends so that he won't have to die a virgin?"

There was a pause, then Sirius rose to his feet so quickly that Remus blinked and didn't even have time to focus before Sirius pulled his chin forward and kissed him. Warmrough fingers skidded along his jaw to the back of his neck and pressed hard against his nape, and Remus opened his mouth without thought and the first taste of Sirius's tongue was like a cut to that space between heart and stomach and his want spilled over. _No._

But before he could pull away, there was only air touching his lips. He pressed them together to stave off its cool sting. Sirius was still so close that Remus could feel unsteady breaths against his cheek, but he was an abstract whose details Remus couldn't linger on to hope to understand the whole. He looked down, and realized his book was still upright in his hands, the edge of the spine pressing into Sirius's chest. "No," Sirius echoed, as if he had drawn Remus's thought into his mouth and released it on a gust of gentle mockery. "_That's_ why," and his lips slipped across Remus's again, and he was falling, falling, "you should fuck me."

Remus let go of the book and reached for Sirius in the same movement. He wrapped his hands around the backs of his thighs and pulled him forward, not gently, and Sirius dropped to his knees on either side of Remus at the edge of the sofa. Remus surged into another kiss, causing Sirius to breathe in his surprise with a sharp inhale before responding, trapping Remus's lips more thoroughly between his own. In that, at least, he didn't seem especially inexperienced, and Remus breathed.

He flexed his fingers on Sirius's thighs, and they shifted under his palms, Sirius inching forward on his knees until he had pressed himself tight against Remus. It felt so good, _so_ good; Remus ran shaking hands up to the curves of Sirius's arse and gripped harder than was probably comfortable when Sirius rocked his erection into Remus's stomach in a convulsive movement. Sirius cut off his own whimper — which was rather endearing, actually — and dove his tongue into Remus's mouth. Remus caught it with a curl of his own and sucked, the taste of Sirius so new and mingling with the familiar as his scent suffused Remus's head and nose and throat. He realized with some despair that it was taking an enormous amount of self-control not to shove them both to the floor and bugger Sirius senseless.

The hem of his shirt skirted across Remus's knuckles, and he released his fingers from their spasmodic curl before they edged underneath; over the waistline of Sirius's trousers, the obscenely warm dip of his lower back, sweaty from the fire or exertion; pressing the tips along the curves of his shoulderblades. The muscles beneath rippled into a shiver, and Remus wrapped his hands around Sirius's shoulders and broke away panting from the kiss as he smoothed them over the arms curled around his neck, pushing them down. He caught the loosened cuffs at the wrists and rubbed a thumb over the thinly-skinned underside of one. Something was holding him back; it might have been the curve of bones under his hand or disappearing beneath the collar of Sirius's shirt, but mostly he thought it was his own pulse, rushing ahead of him, and he didn't know if he would be able to catch up. Sirius looked dazed, but he slipped his arms from the sleeves and sat back on Remus's thighs to yank the shirt over his head; as the disturbed strands of hair fell back into place Remus knew he would never make pretenses of being strong enough to stop this.

Sirius reached for the buttons of Remus's shirt, and if Remus didn't know better he'd say there was something shy about the tilt of his head and the way he refused to look Remus in the eye as he undid them. Some of his hair had settled into the corner of his mouth, trapped by the moisture there. His lips were red from the rush of blood, swollen with it, and Remus touched Sirius's jaw, ran a thumb over his mouth and dislodged the hair at the edge; Sirius's fingers fumbled for a moment. Remus pretended not to notice, and let his own fingers drop down over his throat, smoothing over the pulse before he turned his hand over and grazed his knuckles down Sirius's sternum, the edges of his nails skimming a nipple as they went past.

Sirius was making no progress on the shirt.

Then Remus raked his nails down Sirius's abdomen, welts that were barely visible reddening in their wake, and the shirt was stretched tight across his shoulders and knuckles were digging into his stomach and Sirius made the most broken '—mm' of lust. Remus thought, _oh god._

"Fuck, stop," he said, jerking his hand away and covering Sirius's own with it, attempting to unfurl the spasmodic clutch in the vee of his half-buttoned shirt. Sirius snapped his eyes open, and confusion quickly gave way to fear. But he didn't let go, shook his head on the edge of perceptibility as if saying _No, no_. Remus swallowed, shaking his own head as he leaned forward to touch his lips to Sirius's. Meanwhile, he began undoing the rest of the buttons from the bottom, and when his fingers brushed Sirius's wrist, it was drawn away to allow Remus to finish.

Remus shrugged out of the shirt, Sirius helping him push it down his back and arms. As soon as one was free he wrapped it around Sirius, and twisted their bodies to the side while chucking the garment somewhere in the vicinity of the end of the sofa. He drew one leg up to kneel on the cushion, forcing Sirius's against the back as they fell. "Ow," he muttered against Sirius's collarbone, and tilted his head to see a corner of his abandoned Muggle Studies text digging into his knee. Frowning, he pulled his arm out from underneath Sirius and grabbed it in irritation, tossed it to the floor where it landed with an angry flutter of pages.

"Sexy," Sirius murmured with one side of a grin trapped between his teeth, and Remus inched back along the sofa, bumping his chin gently down Sirius's torso and dropping a few open-mouthed kisses along the way. Despite the grin, his eyes followed Remus fixedly.

"Like a sexy thing," Remus breathed, just below Sirius's bellybutton, and tore his gaze down to watch the way his belly went concave at the wash of warm air. He reached up to slide the top button of his trousers through the hole, and Sirius shifted his hips, exposing another inch of skin — most likely inadvertently, but Remus wasn't one to quibble, and he took a patch of it between his teeth and bit. Not hard enough to break the skin, but nearly, and he settled his hand down below, on the stiff curve of Sirius's cock under the cotton. He hooked a finger above the zipper and, as he closed his mouth just a little tighter over the captive piece of flesh before releasing it, he pulled, tracing the fingertip over moist, blood-hot skin as he drew the zipper down. Sirius's hips lifted in some kind of tense, seeking need, then dropped back down. When Remus looked, his eyelids feeling heavy and his head the most blissful kind of intoxicated, he found that Sirius had completely forgotten to grin. But his lip hadn't been spared, crimson as the darker side of Gryffindor beneath his teeth. Remus smiled.

Then he ducked his head and sucked Sirius into his mouth. He inhaled deeply at Sirius's, "Fuck, oh god, Remus," and rode out his thrust, arching over him and pulling his trousers the rest of the way off.

Remus's cock pushed and rubbed against the material of his own clothing and the sofa's cushion as he settled between Sirius's thighs. He hadn't been this hard in a long while, and the sticky press of it against his stomach was made all the more difficult to ignore by the taste of Sirius on his tongue and nudging against his palette and coating the insides of his cheeks. All heady, dizzying musk that spiraled right down to the roll of his hips. Remus sucked upwards, caught the ridge of the head between his lips and ran the tip of his tongue through the slit, opening his mouth enough to slip it out and caress over the ridges; he repeated it like a litany, incanting his desire along Sirius's cock with his tongue and receiving his response deeper with every thrust. Remus found himself grateful when Sirius twined fingers through his hair, pulling tight enough to hurt and distracting him from the pulse pounding through his body.

Sirius came quick and hard, driving himself down and into Remus's mouth and sounding Remus's name like something come undone. Remus's throat dammed up for a moment at that, and some of the fluid spurting into his mouth escaped past his lips and down Sirius's cock. He forced himself to open his throat, and was able to swallow most of it, but his eyes burned. When he released Sirius, he squeezed them shut and pressed his forehead to Sirius's hip, damp and warm.

"Moony?" Sirius untangled his fingers from Remus's hair, and Remus felt them run tentatively over the arm draped across Sirius's ribs. He shivered, so turned on he felt he could climb into Sirius and never come back out.

Sirius touched the back of his hand, his fingers, but Remus curled them away. He shifted and braced himself as best he could on arms trembling with unreleased tension and looked down at Sirius, mussed and anxious and brushing the hair out of Remus's eyes. He touched his lips with his thumb, and lifted himself onto his elbows to reach them with his own; he nuzzled Remus's bottom lip between them, ran his tongue over the ensnared bit of flesh, opened his mouth over Remus's to dip underneath the top and lap his tongue over the curve. Remus suddenly felt Sirius's hands on his belly, on the fastenings of his trousers, a light brush of fingers on his cock as Sirius worked them open. Remus sighed into Sirius's mouth when he felt fire-warmed air find him exposed. Sirius swallowed the exhalation, stole it with an almost painful ferocity as he wrapped both arms around Remus's neck and broke Remus's tenuous stability with all his strength. The fall drove the air out of their lungs, and their next breaths were of each other. Remus was in over his head, he knew it; he was drowning.

His trousers had ridden halfway down his hips, and his cock pressed like a branding iron into Sirius's skin. Remus unfurled over him, grinding down upon Sirius's still half-hard prick and the heavy softness beneath. Their mouths wrenched apart, emitting harsh gasps for breath. Remus slid his lips sloppily along Sirius's jaw, bumping their cheeks together, Sirius murmuring nonsensically into his ear and Remus realized that his memory already held these long streams of indecipherable words, ancient and powerful for as lost as Remus found himself in them, and Sirius had been speaking them all along. His orgasm was torn from him in ribbons. He hardly had the breath to cry out, and it rasped across Sirius's throat.

Come and sweat was wet and warm between them, and Remus could not think of a graceful way to pull back from the thumb pressing into the scar over his rib. Now that he had come back to himself his skin burned with the proximity of the fire. Who was to tell if it were with humiliation also? He had given in so easily.

"We just had sex in the middle of the common room," Sirius said.

Startled into laughter, Remus lifted his head and looked at him. Sirius wore a genuine if unsteady smile, his hair catching on the material of the sofa with static, the rouge-blush striping his cheeks. "Feeling satisfied with yourself, are you?"

"Maybe, a little."

In this silence, they didn't look away from each other. They were both stubborn, but perhaps it was more than that, too.

Remus's voice rode the crackling of the fire. "Did you get what you wanted?"

Sirius looked away, eyebrows knitted together. Though he seemed to be considering Remus's question without the defense Remus had half dreaded and half hoped for. Finally, "I don't think I could ever get enough of that."

Remus laughed again, and it had a bit of a wild edge to it even he could hear.

"What?" Sirius slipped his hand from Remus's side. Remus caught it.

"Slut," he murmured, and kissed Sirius, messy with the spoils of his want, and perfect.


End file.
